Sounds like music to the ears, right? Nevertheless, there can be certain situations where students remain calm and focused due to the actions of teachers who simply know when to leave well alone.

Mental overload

Take, for example, what we’ll call here the ‘habit’ of fiddling and twiddling with things. It’s a behaviour you may notice far more among autistic students, but please don’t assume it means they’re not properly listening to you. If anything, it’s more likely to be the opposite. Rather than distracting them from the lesson, some students’ fidget toys may in fact be the very coping mechanism that enables them to be attentive.

Autistic youngsters have highly reactive nervous systems. Their brains are constantly busy processing information that the rest of us can easily ignore as ‘background data’. Trying to then attend to auditory information at the same time is no walk in the park if you have autism.

The mental overload caused by trying to focus on a lone voice in a busy classroom can overspill into physical movement. How can you stay in your seat and continue to be polite whilst all this is happening to you? The answer is that you find something to fiddle with.

My autistic son Bobby, aged 18 and currently attending university, is now able to put into words the kind of insights he couldn’t express when he was in his early teens. “I’ve found that I can’t keep still, and need something to fiddle with,” he says. “My body is highly irritable sometimes, but having a fidget helps to calm me physically, so that I can focus mentally.

“Things like ‘simple dimples’ and fidget spinners can be really useful for work, because they can help you focus when you’re thinking about something. It matters that your hands are latched onto something when your brain is busy processing. It gives you a sense of calmness. It means you don’t have to rotate chairs or tap desks.”

Brain regulation

In specialist schools, where students can find focusing on tasks extremely difficult, occupational therapists will often timetable calming, physical activities ahead of lessons with heavy cognitive demands.

Robert Monk is an OT at the Seashell Trust – a school and college that supports students with profound and complex learning difficulties. He describes how, “Our team of sensory-integration trained OTs work with students to identify sensory strategies, which may include the use of fidget toys and/or twiddles. For some students, this tactile stimulation can help them concentrate and focus on a task.”

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that there will be students with similar sensory needs in mainstream settings. In mainstream schools, teenagers with sensory processing differences often end up having to find their own ways of regulating their busy brains, and a common one tends to be fidget toys.

Incidentally, this isn’t limited to just students with autism. Sensory Processing Disorder is usually part of autism, but stands distinct from it, and will often present in other conditions too. So how can you tell when someone is being genuinely inattentive, or merely fidgeting a little because it helps them to focus?

Personal context

The key to answering that is to understand the personal context – and it’s in these sorts of areas that Education, Health and Care Plans can often overlook crucial information. Getting it right depends on great SENCOs asking students and their families appropriate questions to ensure that any important coping mechanisms are included in their support plans.

What do you find calming when there’s a lot going on? What helps to focus you? Is there anything that’s worked for you in the past? If these self-regulation tools aren’t given attention, then things can, and often will go wrong.

“I get the impression that some teachers see it as more of a distraction,’ says Bobby. “I think it’s because when fidget spinners were popular around 2017, everyone started jumping on the bandwagon. But whereas they may be a distraction for others, they really aren’t for people with autism.”

A parent who shared her experiences with me and co-author Gareth Morewood for our book Championing Your Autistic Teen at Secondary School told us that her son used to take Blu Tack with him to primary school. She recalled how his fidgeting was occasionally used as a punishment – ‘You can’t have your Blu Tack until you do this piece of work!’ As she recalled, “All the ‘punishment’ did was make him cry, and the work never got done!”

As Gareth often likes to point out, we wouldn’t remove wheelchairs or hearing aids from students, yet we’ll often deny young people their own coping mechanisms through the unintended consequences of wider systems and policies.

I’m therefore hoping that as you read this article, you’re starting to wonder whether your school’s policies support the use of self-regulation tools or encourage a blanket ban on them. If it’s the latter, I’d venture that a rethink might be in order so that your setting can be inclusive, and adhere to that all-important need to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for your SEND cohort.

Whilst fidget toys can help regulate busy brains, comfort items can be similarly important for reducing anxiety. In my last article for Teach Secondary, I wrote about how anxiety can quickly accumulate for people with autism, who will have difficulty in regulating their emotions when that happens. It’s what I call ‘the double whammy’, and it can lead to very obvious signs of overload.

Comfort items can form part of a raft of strategies to mitigate this risk. A typical comfort item might be a favourite possession from home. Sometimes it can just be an image. Bobby used to have a keyring with laminated photographs of his special interests that he could look at. The photographs would flood his brain with positive, soothing feelings, and drown out some of the ‘noise’ from his otherwise alien surroundings. Comfort items don’t always need to be on show – sometimes just knowing they’re available can make all the difference. Be led by the student.

What about the argument that allowing comfort items and fidget toys in class sets an unhelpful precedent? In my experience, concerns around whether peers will understand this ‘special treatment’ are generally raised by schools where leaders haven’t recognised the need for peer training to reinforce the policy exceptions that sometimes need to be made for students with SEND.

Difficulties will only arise when it hasn’t been explained that fidget toys are as important to some students as wheelchairs might be to others – and that no one would dream of banning wheelchairs on the grounds that they provide certain students with an unfair ‘advantage’ compared to their peers.

Collective solutions

If a fidget or comfort item is genuinely incompatible with the rest of the class being able to focus, enquire about what could be used as a less distracting alternative that performs the same job. The important thing is not to impose your own solution, but to work with families on finding one that suits all of you.

When considering all of this, I’d recommend you ponder one of my favourite quotes from the American poet, Robert Frost: ‘Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it has been put up.’

When they feel secure, and in their own time, students will gradually reduce their reliance on fidget items. And if they don’t – so what? Inclusion doesn’t happen by making everyone else like us. It happens through accepting that some brains need different conditions in which to learn.

Debby Elley is the co-founder of AuKids magazine and a parent to twin sons, both with autism; Championing Your Autistic Teen at Secondary School, by Debby Elley with Gareth D. Morewood, is available now (£14.99, Jessica Kingsley Publishers). Browse more resources for Autism Acceptance Week.

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Our Expert

Martina Veale

Education Director, ASDAN

Ask me about

• Evaluation – We are consistently refining and enhancing our offer – join us, and become part of our professional learning community.

• SEND offer – From curriculum programmes, such as My Independence, to our Personal Progress qualification for Entry Level 1, we offer a range of courses for SEND learners.
• Employability – Our Level 3 EPQ allows students to gain valuable employability skills via work placements and work-based projects, while acquiring up to 28 UCAS points.

Who is the target audience for what ASDAN offers?

Our Level 1 and 2 personal and social effectiveness (PSE) qualifications are for those young people for whom the standard diet of GCSEs and exam-based qualifications isn’t enough to engage or excite them.

These will be young people at risk of falling behind their peers without qualifications that provide opportunities to practise using personal and social skills in context. The qualifications are designed to meet the needs of these learners.

How attractive are the qualifications likely to be for employers?

PSE qualifications are designed to equip young people with the core personal and social skills that are essential for work. Academic learning often provides learners with theory before they have opportunities to practise. In the real world, young people are quick to have a go, but might refer to an online video if something doesn’t work.

Our qualifications place practical learning at the forefront, supported by a fully resourced curriculum that practitioners can use to support young people in reflecting on, and learning from, their experiences.

Is there an ‘emotional health’ dimension to PSE qualifications?

To make sense of their education journey, young people need a secure understanding of who they are, their heritage, what motivates them and what holds them back.

Employers need emotionally intelligent and resilient young people who can work collaboratively and effectively problem solve. PSE develops competencies in the key areas of communication, collaboration, emotional intelligence and resilience, providing a solid foundation from which young people can progress onto further learning and work. That way, they can continue to learn new skills with those core competencies already in their toolkit.

How are the qualifications assessed?

Our student-led portfolio structure is designed to support young people who struggle with exam-based approaches.

They can demonstrate that they have met the learning objectives of the units ‘Developing Myself and My Performance’, ‘Working with Others’ and ‘Problem Solving’ at their own pace. Those seeking to achieve a certificate in Personal and Social Effectiveness then go on to undertake a project based on one of 12 challenge topics.

What evidence is there that the qualifications work in practice?

PSE has been created with practitioners already delivering our existing personal effectiveness qualifications. We incorporated their ideas throughout development, and continue to involve them and other teachers in delivery, as part of our PSE evaluation project.

One participant on the project told us, “The personalised aspect of PSE is crucial for learners’ future development. The course is totally unique and valued by the learners, parents and staff delivering it. I value it immensely.”

To find out more, visit asdan.org.uk/pse, call 0117 941 1126 or email info@asdan.org.uk.

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Ask children why they are there, and they will gently explain: “Oh, yeah that’s Daniel. He needs loads of help with his learning from Mrs Smith” (the 1:1 teaching assistant).  

SEN children

Every few years I have had “that Daniel”. The one you and the other teacher spend most of the class handover discussing.

The child with acute SEN, which the school can barely support. Their EHCP is a litany of acronyms you have not even seen before, never mind comprehend.

Their education psychologist report puts their level of understanding in the bottom one percentile and with the abilities of a child half their age.

Your heart drops as you realise that the provision you will be continuing for this child is a salve. Come INSET you and their 1:1 will install the child and their ‘classroom’ into whichever spare corner can be found.

As children progress through KS2, this will inevitably be outside of their actual classroom as they will be on an individual curriculum detached from the learning of their peers.

Hopefully, the child will have a 1:1 who follows them from one class to another so you have some idea of what to do.

Teaching the child is a hope rather than a given: learning delivered by a TA using whichever resources you can find as you lack the training to understand what the child needs. And the time.

You may need to plan an individualised curriculum for this child, but that is alongside all the learning for the other 30+ pupils in your class.

Leaving the question: do you prioritise the learning of one child over that of the rest?  

EHCP turmoil

The number of children with an EHCP has increased by 10 per cent since 2021 alone. As many of us know all too well, getting an EHCP for a child is a battle, especially in EYFS or KS1.

Post-Covid, those with acute mental health needs has skyrocketed, yet there is little provision for SEN children.

In my county, there are less than 20 SEN schools compared with nearly 500 mainstream schools.

Of these, the majority are for children with complex needs or ASD who would never have attended mainstream.

Only one offers education for pupils with mental health needs that preclude them from mainstream schooling as a whole, but who can access the mainstream curriculum.

There is no provision for children who are profoundly dyslexic.  

At a time of shrinking budgets, the provision for these children becomes a question of ROI – Return on Investment.

Can we justify the TA’s salary being spent on one child who will not do SATs, versus supporting the learning of four children who will?

As the Timpson Review noted in 2019, SEN children are persistently more likely to permanently excluded or off-rolled, compared to their peers without SEN.

Anecdotally, we have seen that in our local high school: children with complex needs arrive in Year 7 but will have left for ‘home schooling’ by the end of Year 8 – if the academy will even accept them in the first place.  

These are children that fell into a gap made for them.

Their needs could not be properly supported by their teachers; they ended up working outside of the classroom setting to support their learning because no SEN school place was available; the high school cannot provide this level of provision so won’t take them.

And then you have a child who finds themselves with neither a SEN nor mainstream school place.  

SEN funding

The most frustrating, wretched, maddening aspect of all this is that along the way the child gets lost.

Daniel becomes “that Daniel”: an administrative and logistical problem to be solved. A child who is confused and disconnected from the world around them and who loses friends as their peers outgrow them.

The fortunate children won’t notice this; their needs leaving them disconnected from the perceptions of others.

The unfortunate will, and we witness the slow decline in their behaviour and self-esteem. The slump in the shoulders and the falling of the head as they trudge to their educational purgatory.   

In June, the government announced funding for up to 60 new SEN/Alternative Provision schools creating 4,500 new places.

But will these be in metropolitan areas or the rural counties that are often forgotten? Until then, schools will carry on trying their best. Making the least bad choices to support pupils in a failing, under-resourced system. 

The writer is a primary teacher in England.

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Our Expert

Patrick McGrath

Head of education strategy at the Texthelp Group

Join Patrick at Texthelp’s Festival of Inclusive Education on 2nd November 2022, where he’ll be exploring the learning iceberg in more detail with Dr Susie Nyman. Get your free ticket.

We know that only 10% of an iceberg sits above the waterline. This is the part that is clearly visible. This is also true of our pupils if we think about the percentage of students with individual needs statements.

Any teacher will tell you that this is not reflective of the students who need support. Or those that simply learn differently. We need to stop and think about everything in our classrooms that sits below that waterline.

These seven habits of highly inclusive practice are a good place to start.

1 Remove stigma

We need to think about the stigma we apply when we give a certain subset of learners access to technology. The branding of tools as assistive technology can create barriers for those who don’t want to be labelled.

During the extended periods of remote learning we saw a four-fold rise in the use of assistive technology. That’s because everyone can benefit.

We need to make sure we give all our learners access to the same tools, to use when they need them.

2 Design for inclusion

When design is inclusive, we give people the supports they need for every given circumstance.

If you think about a ramp alongside stairs, this provides accessibility for wheelchair users. That same ramp can also be used by someone with limited mobility, or even someone with a pushchair.

In the classroom, when we design from an inclusive perspective we need to put supports in place that are necessary for some and useful for all.

3 Pick the right tools

Technology in the classroom isn’t just about providing a certain set of tools. We need to provide students with tools that can help them to understand and be understood in different ways.

When thinking about text-to-speech as a tool to support dyslexic students, we are ignoring those under the waterline.

Reading aloud also helps to reduce screen time and with revision. By giving everyone access, all learners can benefit.

We need to provide a wide range of tools to give our students choice, voice and support.

“Let’s not talk about accessible or inclusive practice, let’s just talk about practice”

4 Focus on goals

If we’re all different, how can we start to design learning to support everyone? We need to focus on goals and design the activity in a way that allows all learners to reach this goal.

A standardised approach won’t give everyone the same opportunities. We need to have flexibility to help us plan better for those above and below the waterline.

5 Adopt a framework

You might find it helpful to formalise everything we’ve explored so far by adopting a framework – a structure that gives us help and support to be more inclusive by design, to be goal oriented and to use the right tools.

Universal Design for Learning is a leading framework that focuses on multiple ways of engaging students, representing content and reaching goals through expression.

6 Provide opportunity

We all know the benefits that inclusive practice and tools can provide for learners. They have more flexibility and can be more independent. Learning becomes more self-paced and accessible.

So if you only take away one habit from this list, I would recommend this – provide opportunity.

We can design learning well and select the right tools, but we need to give our students the opportunities to use them.

7 Be accessible, always

To wrap up, I want to talk about accessibility in general terms. We need to put consideration into the documents we create and share with students. Are there headings and alt text for images? Are the links, fonts and colours accessible?

Moving forward, let’s not talk about accessible or inclusive practice, let’s just talk about practice. Accessible practice is simply good practice.

I challenge you to take at least one of these habits to adopt into your everyday practice. Together, we can help everyone understand and be understood.

Join Patrick at Texthelp’s Festival of Inclusive Education on 2nd November 2022, where he’ll be exploring the learning iceberg in more detail with Dr Susie Nyman. Get your free ticket.

The post The learning iceberg – 7 habits of highly inclusive teaching practice appeared first on Teachwire.

Dyslexia is a genetic difference in an individual’s ability to learn and process information. It affects at least one in ten people – so that’s around three kids in each average-sized classroom.

Despite being common, dyslexia often goes undiagnosed, with dyslexic people making countless compromises to ‘fit in’ to a neurotypical society.

What is Dyslexia Awareness Week?

It’s an annual event run by the British Dyslexia Association. This year’s theme is ‘Breaking Through Barriers’ which is all about reflecting on the barriers that dyslexic people face, while also celebrating success stories.

When is Dyslexia Awareness Week?

Dyslexia Awareness Week 2022 takes place between 3rd-9th October.

British Dyslexia Association

For Dyslexia Awareness Week 2022, the British Dyslexia Association has teamed up with Lizzie Acker from the Great British Bake Off to encourage schools to host bake sales to raise funds for the BDA. Watch the video below, and download free bunting, cake toppers, posters, price tags and recipes here.

You can also take part in two free webinars:

• Supporting spellings and times tables (5th October 2022)
• Resources and approaches for teachers (6th October 2022)

Supporting dyslexic pupils’ unique skills

In this article, Katie Griggs, founder and CEO of charity Made By Dyslexia, explains how best to support children with dyslexia in your classroom.

How to spot signs of dyslexia

Alais Winton highlights some of the dyslexia signs schools should look out for – and what to do if you spot them.

It covers identification, inclusion, parental engagement and feedback.

Dyslexia Scotland

Dyslexia Scotland aims to empower people with dyslexia to reach their full potential. The site contains articles, videos, recommendations for books and games, and other people with dyslexia share their work, experiences and strategies for success.

Download the Addressing Dyslexia toolkit here which guides teachers through a child-centred, collaborative process of identification, assessment, support and monitoring.

Find out more about online learning for educators here and download a free printable resource to use with young dyslexic learners.

How children with dyslexia think

What does it feel like to attend school as a child with dyslexia? Margaret Rooke set about finding out – and here are some of the answers.

In this extract from her book, Dyslexia is My Superpower (Most of the Time), young students with dyslexia talk about their experiences, and what teachers shouldn’t do.

Make your school’s practice dyslexia-friendly

Liz Horobin highlights what two schools have done to make dyslexia-friendly practice central to how they operate.

Free dyslexia test

Early identification of dyslexia is essential because dealing with dyslexia in the first years of school is the most effective way to help. This free dyslexia test for 5-7 year olds is the ideal first step towards identification.

Free ebook

Download this free ebook called Dyslexia Explained, which helps parents understand the positives, the difficulties and what helps, so that they can use it to help explain dyslexia to their child.

And as people with dyslexia tend to think in pictures rather than words, illustrations are used to explain each point.

Support students’ working memory

In this article, Neil MacKay explains why the issues experienced by dyslexic learners in the classroom can often stem from their working memory – and what teachers can do to support them.

Five spelling games

At beatingdyslexia.com you’ll find a whole heap of helpful tools for learners with dyslexia, such as this list of five spelling games to try.

They use strategies like mnemonics and chunking to help students to get a better grasp on spelling.

Find them here.

Identify their strengths

Pupils with dyslexia can and will thrive if schools can properly identify and build on their strengths, says Jules Daulby.

The post Dyslexia Awareness Week 2022 – 11 of the best teaching resources appeared first on Teachwire.

This means that right now, education systems around the world are failing children.

With only 20 per cent of dyslexic students identified, a disproportionate majority are being left to ‘muddle through’ without the necessary support and confidence they need to succeed.  

On top of this, research suggests that most teachers aren’t aware of ‘dyslexic thinking’ as a concept and have little or no understanding of ‘dyslexic strengths’.

As a result, the way teachers work with dyslexic children is not optimised, and many children never truly understand their full potential, and suffer as a consequence.  

What is dyslexia?

Dyslexia is the most common learning difference, with up to 20 per cent of the population affected by it. It is genetic and runs in families, and has common characteristics that can be identified as early as pre-school.   

Dyslexic brains are wired slightly differently, which means they have a unique way of processing information.

They are often naturally curious and highly creative, with an ability to unconventionally connect the dots and think laterally.

This difference results in a pattern of challenges but extraordinary strengths too.   

Young dyslexic minds have strengths in areas like creativity, problem solving, empathy and communication, so look out for these qualities.

Many children with dyslexia may struggle with other things such as concentration and following instructions, remembering facts and figures, and elements of literacy, such as reading, spelling, punctuation and grammar.  

Dyslexic thinking

Dyslexic Thinking has created some of the world’s greatest inventions, brands and art.

From Roald Dahl to Richard Branson, inspiring dyslexic minds have shaped culture and commerce over the last century, with their brilliant qualities and unique strengths. 

Dyslexic kids often become experts in the subjects they love because they are inquisitive and curious and use lots of dyslexic thinking skills – such as exploring and questioning – to find out all there is to know about a subject, but at the same time they might struggle to grasp simple skills their peers find easy.

Easy-to-spot strengths include sport, art, music and dancing.  

Dyslexic challenges

Dyslexic children often struggle with manipulating and holding on to sounds and words, which can make learning to read and spell difficult.

They may have difficulty with verbal memory to follow instructions with multiple steps and struggle with executive function skills, such as organisation, concentration, and sequential tasks.

They may find maths operations difficult and struggle with memorisation and might require more time to process their thoughts and complete tasks.  

Often in dyslexic children there is a mismatch in what a learner seems capable of and the written work they produce, and they may not have test scores and grades that reflect how much they have actually learned.

This is often misread in undiagnosed children as laziness or lack of concentration to the great detriment of the child and the ability of the teacher to assist them.    

Research suggests that the earlier dyslexia is discovered and supported, the sooner dyslexic kids catch up and keep up, and four in five dyslexics attribute their knowing they were dyslexic to developing the perseverance needed to suceed.

It is clear that the ‘label’ is vital for our own self-understanding, and essential for teachers to be able to provide the necessary assistance the children require to flourish. 

How to support dyslexia

1. Look for and pay close attention to the dyslexic children in your class, and find out from the parents what they love to do. These usually point to their dyslexic thinking skills, and you can learn about how you can integrate them into the children’s projects and goals.   

2. Look out for easy-to-spot strengths including sport, art, music and dancing, as well as other common dyslexic skills such as empathy, kindness, imagining, listening and questioning.  

3. Define dyslexic thinking as a valuable skillset to be proud of. 

4. Encourage dyslexic children to do what they love and are passionate about at every opportunity. Skill + practice + passion = superpower. Acknowledge their expertise. Dyslexics often don’t realise how good they are at these things, so may not recognise them as their superpowers.  

5. Build self- esteem with positive praise. Research suggests that we are most motivated to improve when we hear negative and positive comments in a ratio of 1:5. That’s five pieces of praise for every one negative comment. Positive praise is vital for dyslexic children. And even if certain things are challenging, or progress is slow, each small win should be celebrated.  

6. Make the most of assistive technologies, such as text-to-speech and speech-to-text, spelling and grammar checking, tablets and calculators, and provide supports such as guided notes and copies of presentations. Dyslexic children struggle with spelling, punctuation and grammar so focus on what they’re trying to say and their wonderful ideas first, rather than spelling – that can always be checked later. 

7. Use a multi-sensory, explicit phonics approach to better help pupils with dyslexia learn to read. Don’t force children to read aloud; instead ask them if they would like to in advance and make it optional in a group setting. Dyslexic learners will take longer to read than others so give them the text ahead of time so they have time to prepare before the lesson. 

8. Consider different options to complete tasks, both in your classroom and during tests. Dyslexics love to have the big picture, so giving them an overview of your lesson ahead of time will help to them keep on track. Provide accommodations on traditional exams and assessments, such as having the test read aloud, allowing students to dictate their answers, and provide additional time. 

9. Learn about dyslexia and dyslexic thinking, including how to spot, support and empower the one in five dyslexic kids in your classroom. You can access free video training at tinyurl.com/tp-DyslexiaTraining 

10. Create supportive structures for fellow teachers, parents and children to share experiences and information. Posters, factsheets and more information is available for free at madebydyslexia.org/teachers 

Recently, LinkedIn added dyslexic thinking as a skill, offering their 810+ million global members the option to add it as a skill on their profile. Dyslexic thinking has also been added as a skill on dictionary.com.

This is a huge step forward in the recognition of the incredible strengths dyslexic thinkers bring to the world.  

With more tools at our disposal to identify and support dyslexic children than ever, it is not acceptable to let it slip under the radar or to view it two-dimensionally as a learning difficulty.

The best way we can support and empower dyslexic children is to discover their particular strengths, and place as much importance on them as we do on the things they struggle with.    

Find out more about Dyslexia Awareness Week and the best teaching resources to use in your classroom.

Kate Griggs is the founder and CEO of global charity Made By Dyslexia and author of dyslexia guide This is Dyslexia (£11.99, Penguin) and children’s book Xtraordinary People: Made By Dyslexia. Katie was also consulted on Matt Hancock’s Dyslexia Bill back in 2021.

The post Dyslexia Awareness Week – why (and how) to support your dyslexic pupils’ unique skills appeared first on Teachwire.

But the exact nature of their role – and the expectations made of them – is hugely varied.

This uncertainty can make fulfilling the role difficult, especially if a school doesn’t have a clear outline of required duties.

This needs to change; not just for the benefit of TAs and teachers, but for the children they support.  

So where have today’s TAs come from, and why aren’t there standards? Well, the role has essentially developed by stealth.

There have always been additional adults in classrooms – whether older pupils in Victorian classrooms, or parent helpers more common in the 20^th century – but they were not expected to actually teach the children in any way other than perhaps hearing them read.  

Somehow, however, modern TAs (in most settings) are usually much more focused on supporting and promoting learning.

This change has grown over the last half century, and is rooted in major policy changes in education that were not directly related to the role of the TA. For example: 

Changes in SEND and approach to inclusion 

Until The Warnock report in 1978, children with special needs were regarded as ‘handicapped’, largely excluded from mainstream settings, and placed in special schools and institutions.  

Enshrined in the 1981 Education Act, The Warnock report started the move to increased inclusion in mainstream schools, and replaced the term ‘handicapped’ with ‘special educational needs’ (SEN).

This led to a requirement for additional adult support within classrooms.

Over time, TAs have become, in many schools, the default form of support for children with a high level of SEN, particularly if they have an education health care plan (EHCP).

This has been an organic development born out of necessity, but without any formal planning, per se.  

Raising standards and workload agendas 

Since the 1980s, alongside the reframing of the approach to SEN, there has been an increased emphasis on raising educational attainment, leading to the implementation of the National Curriculum from 1989 and the birth of Ofsted in 1992.

These increased the pressures on school staff and fed into a growing concern about teachers’ recruitment, retention and workload. 

This, in turn, led to ‘The National Agreement’ (2003) between the government, employers and school workforce unions, aimed at tackling these concerns.

It established expectations for ‘the increased use of staff who are not qualified teachers to work in a range of teaching and support roles’.

This directive included a list of 25 administrative and clerical tasks to be passed from teachers to support staff (including those in the office, etc), but again, did not set out a clear job description or training programme for TAs.  

Supplement support 

TAs these days, then, have many different duties, usually directly involved in learning and providing wider non-pedagogical support.

But this is still largely unregulated, with huge variations from school to school, and the government hasn’t provided a clear policy (arguably due to a lack of understanding about the role TAs actually play).

Despite an attempt to introduce TA standards in 2016, and years of work from the Maximising the Impact of Teaching Assistants (MITA) projects and the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), there are just four statements in government guidance about teaching assistants.

These highlight that the teacher remains responsible and accountable for all the children in their class and that TAs should ‘supplement rather than replace support from teachers’.  

So, not only is the exact nature of their role and duties unclear, but TAs have no formal career structure, recommended training or even a requirement for line management and appraisal. This seems ludicrous for such an essential role.  

In short, it is time for us to reconsider how we train and deploy our TAs. We need to start this process by changing the emphasis from them being seen as assistants to the teacher, to focusing on their role as professional learning support assistants (LSAs) who specialise in promoting children’s learning.

This needs to be underpinned by a proper career structure which identifies and reflects their value in schools.

Without this, they will remain vulnerable to ongoing threats of cuts and job losses, which in turn increases the vulnerability of the children they support.  

Sara Alston is an independent consultant and trainer with SEA Inclusion and Safeguarding, and a practising SENCo.

The post Teaching assistant – we need a clear career structure for TAs, now appeared first on Teachwire.

The desire to create a more inclusive society touches every part of our lives. For those of us working in education, nowhere is the focus more important than in our schools.  

But how can we create an environment where all students feel included, valued and supported?  

At Charles Dickens Primary School in Southwark, we have a higher-than-average number of pupils with SEND, so great emphasis is placed on the importance of inclusive teaching.

Our approach is based on three key strategies, each of which has a role to play in helping schools to create a more inclusive learning environment for all children. Here’s how I think they could work for you… 

1. Maintain consistency

It is probable that an effective strategy for building inclusive policies into one part of a school could be adapted and replicated more widely.

For example, in our school we have introduced a range of strategies to encourage and reinforce positive behaviour… including bingo cards.  

We’ve seen how much the children love being spotted working hard, listening carefully and being kind, and getting their cards marked off as a reward.

It’s a really successful initiative that has increased positive behaviour and resulted in far fewer teachers needing guidance on managing incidences in their lessons.   

A key strength of the scheme is that the bingo cards can be adapted to individual pupils’ needs.

So there might be specific actions included to help a chatty child stay focused, or encourage a shy pupil to raise a hand to answer a question.

But its real success lies mostly in the fact that children in classes across the school have the cards, which means pupils are familiar with them and they’re not a novelty.  

2. Encourage independence

Teachers can sometimes have different routines in place to help children take care of their personal belongings, get the equipment they need for each lesson, and put sporting apparatus away after PE.

A more inclusive strategy is one that, as much as possible, doesn’t have a group of children doing something inherently different to everyone else.  

Children are happier, more engaged and make better progress in school when they get the support they need to navigate the day without requiring the help of an adult.

So standardising common routines can be a great way to encourage pupils to be more independent.

In our school, every child has access to a visual timetable to help them see what lessons are being taught now and next, so no child with additional needs feels singled out by having information displayed visually.   

3. Support learning

One area where a focus on inclusion can make the greatest difference is in the way children with additional needs are supported in the classroom.  

Pupils who do not yet have the vocabulary or processing skills to grasp the meaning of unfamiliar terminology used in curriculum areas such as science, English and geography can be at a disadvantage from the start and will be at increased risk of falling behind.  

One of the ways we have become more inclusive is to pre-teach subject-specific vocabulary to all children a few weeks before it comes up in a lesson, helping them to build their knowledge of these terms ahead of time.  

Teachers select the specialist terms they are planning to teach – e.g. tectonic, atmospheric and terrestrial – and create word banks and maps in advance of the lesson.

These resources include an appropriate symbol or simple image to represent each of the words and phrases so they are immediately more accessible to children with speech, language and communication needs.  

As inclusion becomes increasingly important, in education and in wider society, provision for children with and without SEND will continue to evolve.

Child-centred strategies should be at the heart of this and with a combination of universal and more targeted support, schools can create a more inclusive learning environment for all.  

Will Cannock is assistant head and SENDCo at Charles Dickens Primary School in Southwark which uses Widgit symbols to develop its resources to support inclusion.  

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Brain breaks. Movement breaks. Sensory breaks. Call them what you will. In the course of any primary school day, breaks are essential, not only for preventing disruption but for resetting our pupils’ brains, making them more receptive to learning.  

More than a SEN tool

“But I already use learning breaks with my SEN kids!” I hear you shout. In most cases, that means individual breaks, managed by a TA… and here’s where may be missing a trick.  

Learning breaks are not only critical for pupils with ADHD and autism to self-regulate – they help all learners engage their sensory systems, effectively turning back on the ignition for cognition.

And using them with your whole class is more inclusive than restricting them for use with a few. 

“Physical movement compensates for under arousal or underactivity in some areas of the brain associated with ADHD,” explains Tony Lloyd, CEO of the ADHD Foundation.

“By moving, the child stimulates and increases the dopaminergic activity in their brain. This then helps them to arouse their attentional system towards the task in hand and supports their ability to sustain their focus upon that activity.” 

So, giving pupils a break re-energises them for the next chunk of learning. Good for brains, and a no brainer. #

Physical breaks in the classroom

If pupils are lagging or low-level noise is building up, get pupils’ attention and direct them to a sequence of short physical activities – the more creative, the better, as it generates curiosity and boosts listening.  

It’s not unusual for my pupils to get out-of-the-blue instructions like, ‘Hands in the air, reach for the sky, touch your nose, stand on one leg’.

The element of surprise also boosts attention and concentration.

Pressing the reset button in this way is quick, effective and inclusive, giving all pupils in the room a short learning break.  

What’s important here is that breaks do not interrupt the flow of learning – in fact, the more you do this, the more you will see that pupils approach the next stage of learning activities with more energy and enthusiasm.  

The most effective physical breaks are time limited, such as two-minute movement bursts; getting pupils to dance or run around then freeze into statues when they hear an agreed ‘alarm’; running outside and picking up as many leaves as they can in one minute.

Get pupils to roll dice for numbered fitness activities on a poster – hopping, knee lifts, heel touch, star jumps.

For calm, try a yoga equivalent – rag doll, frog, mountain, cobra, star or child’s pose would be good ones to try. 

Try creative breaks that boost language, too – if possible, topic-inspired. For example, a seaside-themed movement break would give pupils two minutes to wobble like a jelly fish, walk like a crab, jump like a star fish or waddle like a penguin.

Studying the Victorians? Make your break a chance to walk like the queen; crawl like a child chimney sweep; march around the classroom like a strict Victorian schoolmaster; and so on. 

Brain booster games

It’s easy to think of brain breaks as being all about movement or detaching completely from any stimulus.

But there are several options to keep on standby for when you feel class attention slipping.  

Pictures are powerful tools for this, and the more unusual, the better. Before a two-minute alarm sounds, allow pupils to ask as many questions as possible about the image on the whiteboard.

Children can use mini whiteboards to ‘voice’ their question rather than speaking out loud. 

Another no-preparation break is Word Connect. Get the children to stand up, give the ‘starting’ pupil a stimulus word; they respond with any associated word then ‘pass’ it to the pupil next to them or behind.

See if they can keep going for two, three or four minutes. To avoid pressure for pupils needing longer response times, allow ‘call backs’ or ‘phone a friend’. 

How to avoid sensory overload

Extra breaks for individual pupils with SEN should be encouraged and guided. This enables pupils to ward off the build-up of anxiety and sensory overload that causes a meltdown.  

Introduce preventative break cards for pupils with greater need, not only those with ADHD and autism, but also oppositional defiance disorder (ODD), pathological demand avoidance (PDA) and any anxiety-based disorder.

The break card is a non-verbal sign that the child shows the teacher or TA whenever they feel that they are beginning to struggle.

With parameters agreed in advance and a shortlist of their own effective strategies, pupils can then access the type of break and re-regulate – in class, in the corridor outside or in a nearby outside space.  

Solo preventative break strategies can be as simple as counting up and down or closing your eyes and going into an imaginary world.

My favourites include: rolling yourself up tight in a blanket for compression; arm push-ups against the wall; walking along coloured tape on the floor or a line on the playground; rolling on a peanut ball; or sitting under a table with blanket, weighted vest or familiar high-interest toys. 

According to Professor Tony Attwood, author, clinical psychologist and autism expert, the benefits of preventative sensory breaks cannot be overplayed: “Sensory overload for autistic children does not just cause discomfort – it is exceedingly painful. They need sensory breaks in tranquillity and preferably, solitude. Only after recovery will the child be able to focus on learning.” 

Desk break exercises

A learning break does not necessarily mean getting away from your desk, either. If pupils are beginning to feel dysregulated, give them a menu of desk-based strategies they can turn to.

Many use a universally available resource: the pupil’s own hands. For example, Palm Presses (face your palms together and push them for five to 10 seconds); Scrunch It (crumple up paper or tissue to make it as small as possible); Finger Pulls or Hand Crawls (move your fingers like a spider or octopus across the desk).  

For fantastic sensory adjustment, encourage Bear Hugs – remaining on your chair, wrap your arms around your chest or knees and give yourself a firm hug for as long as possible.

‘Chewelry’ (bracelets or necklaces that safely provide sensory input) or chewable pencil toppers are also great for giving pupils a sensory regulation break.

And don’t forget the power of music through headphones: the right kind of calming classical piece on a tablet can slow the heartbeat and restore regulation in minutes. 

Liz Hawker is a SEN specialist, BPS-accredited assessor and parent in Kent. Follow Liz on Twitter @hawkerl1

The post Brain breaks – how to make them work for all pupils appeared first on Teachwire.

The basic ethos is built upon the idea that a school is only as good as the quality of its teaching.

ProgressTeaching is designed with teacher improvement in mind and that is what makes it stand out so much from the crowd.

The cloud based interface allows teachers to refine their own practice, streamline data and reporting and, most importantly, support one another.

ProgressTeaching brings together teacher development, student information and parental engagement on one easy to navigate, intuitive platform.

After just a few minutes navigating the online portal, teachers are able to access and record, send and receive a wealth of information, giving them the power and time to focus on what is most important – teaching the students.

It is no secret that the processing, recording and application of school data is contributing significantly to the retention of teachers. When you factor in the continual need for development, it is clear that a solution is needed if we are to retain staff.

ProgressTeaching does away with a number of the complexities around data collection and collation, leaving teachers to do what they do best – teach.

Regardless of phase or context, ProgressTeaching is functional and exceptionally powerful with regard to staff development and an excellent workload reducing tool.

The platform is innovative and forward thinking, being the only existing platform to boast triangulation between teacher development, pupil progress and parental engagement.

For me, the highlight of ProgressTeaching is the developmental observational tools and tracking. We all know that being observed can be tedious and what ProgressTeaching does is align the process, making it completely transparent and, most importantly, tangible and fair.

The focus on teacher feedback provides practitioners with quality information about areas for improvement in their own practice. The centralisation of lesson observations allows amplified self-efficacy, leading to a strong collective vision.

Not only this, but the processes support the fundamental concept of improvement, building on the ethos of openness and continual growth in the classroom.

ProgressTeaching lets teachers share best practices easily, further emphasising the peer-centric approach and allows schools to see trends in teacher development.

Data yielded allows managers to quickly make action plans for teachers’ development and foster a more positive culture around CPD.

Research suggests that collective efficacy, focused support and the shared vision of teachers are key factors in supporting the outcomes of learners, and ProgressTeaching allows schools to develop these aspects perfectly.

Data tracking and recording can be a real time killer for teachers – with the current retention crisis, schools need to do all they can to ensure that teachers are not subject to arduous processes.

ProgressTeaching allows you to view a student’s progress across all their subjects in a single place. You can see their predicted and actual grades at a glance and identify which students need extra support.

The simplicity of the interface means navigating is effortless and the running off of information is equally as straightforward.

ProgressTeaching allows teachers and leaders to build and see the information that really helps learners move forward, ensuring that they are fully supported in their learning.

The platform provides real-time analysis of school, class, year group and student performance, meaning teachers get the full view of a student’s progress.

Alongside this, teachers can also easily access pastoral reports and student support strategies, meaning that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.

ProgressTeaching is designed to integrate with your MIS, meaning migration of databases is simple. Teachers are able to interact with all student data, across all phases in one place, making the process simple and minimising the time it takes to see what matters.

ProgressTeaching allows teachers to freely communicate with parents, without clogging up their inboxes. The platform allows staff to write and send information to parents directly, respond to any concerns or questions from parents, share incident reports and identify any gaps in engagement.

Parents are able to view their child’s timetable and class information, progress reports information about behaviour and communication from teachers

From start to finish, ProgressTeaching is designed with teachers in mind. It’s a teacher-centric platform that offers real time-saving, productive functionality.

Find out more at progressteaching.com

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